Meet slime mould, nature's supercomputer ... don't mind the gross factor

Published: 
By Peter Choi (Second year, majoring in Applied Biology) Sarah Wong (Third year, majoring in Construction Engineering and Management) Ada Yeung (Third year, majoring in Bioengineering) City University of Hong Kong
Listen to this article

Mould can turn your bread green and leave spots on your walls, and scientists are realising that it can think for itself

By Peter Choi (Second year, majoring in Applied Biology) Sarah Wong (Third year, majoring in Construction Engineering and Management) Ada Yeung (Third year, majoring in Bioengineering) City University of Hong Kong |
Published: 
Comment

Latest Articles

Hong Kong English teachers to undergo IELTS instead of local assessment

DSE 2024: To ace English Paper 1, pay attention to details and use ChatGPT to study

Australia’s ‘earless dragon’ faces extinction due to climate change

WHO Europe report says 16% of all adolescents were cyberbullied in 2022

Hong Kong’s MTR Corp to hike ticket prices by 3% this year

Conflict through a writer’s eyes: 5 books set during war

It's not pretty, but slime mould is proving to be very smart.

Humans have long known how important fungus is. The antibiotic penicillin, derived from the fungi Penicillium, battles bacterial infections. Other fungi are used as food-fermenting agents: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used to make beer and wine and Aspergillus oryzae is used to make miso and soy sauce. Fermentation enhances food's nutritional values, improves flavour and increases shelf life.

But what about mould? Do you think it can be helpful to humans? To students from City University of Hong Kong, the answer is "yes".

Students are researching a kind of mould-like microbe called slime mould, aka Physarum polycephalum. This yellow, gluey slime mould usually appears in the form of plasmodia, which looks like scrambled eggs. It grows by itself into a network, with some blobs at certain spots as it extends outward. It moves relatively quickly compared to other microbes: the mould can "crawl" at 1cm per hour.

Slime mould crawls in a highly efficient way when it forages for food. For example, if slime mould wanted to reach Tiu Keng Leng from Central, it would opt for the Island Line instead of taking the Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong lines.

Using a specially designed maze, researchers from Japan's Hokkaido University successfully proved that slime mould will find the shortest path to reach food, avoiding three longer paths.

They also made a miniature version of the Tokyo metro system with the help of slime mould, marking Tokyo's landmarks with slime mould's favourite food: the oats we eat.

The researchers used light, which slime mould doesn't like, to simulate prohibitive terrain, like lakes and mountains.

Eventually, the mould foraged in a network that was very similar to the real Tokyo subway.

The CityU students want to discover what is actually going on in the mind of slime mould.

Under the guidance of their professors, the students are investigating the behaviour of slime mould when faced with different environmental stimuli, for example, food it likes (oat flakes) and things it dislikes (light).

Sign up for the YP Teachers Newsletter
Get updates for teachers sent directly to your inbox
By registering, you agree to our T&C and Privacy Policy
Comment